


When They Sound the Last All Clear

by EmilianaDarling



Series: Love Songs of the War Years [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cold War, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/M, M/M, Multi, OT3, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Post-World War II, Pre-OT3, Realistic Post-War Conditions, Road Trip, Violence, Wartime, World War II, bucky never falls, eventual polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 12:43:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3978505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilianaDarling/pseuds/EmilianaDarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve is discovered in the ice three months after the Valkyrie crashed, Peggy’s instinct is to drop everything to ensure he makes a full recovery. But the SSR isn’t done with her yet; not when Hydra is already spreading to the Soviet Union, when all of Europe is still reeling in the aftermath of the war. It’s pure coincidence that Sergeant James Barnes is the person assigned to accompany her. </p><p>It’s supposed to be one last mission before they can both return home to Steve. </p><p>It isn’t supposed to change everything.</p><p> <br/>[This fic presents a self-contained story that can easily be read on its own, but can also be interpreted as a canon-divergent sequel to "You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To".]</p>
            </blockquote>





	When They Sound the Last All Clear

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> You guys. _You guys._ I am so, so excited to share this one with you. 
> 
> This is a fic that I've been working on for quite some time now, but have finally decided to start posting because I've realized just how integral the act of sharing my stories is to my writing process. Your thoughts and encouragement make such a huge difference with a multi-chapter fic like this one, and I truly hope that you guys enjoy it. 
> 
> Since I started plotting this story out such a long time ago, it does not take certain events in _Agent Carter_ into consideration. (Although it certainly does draw on the show for inspiration and characterization, because _damn_.) Additionally, there are certain elements of this story that are more in-keeping with the cinematic nature of the _Captain America_ films than with actual post-war logistics. Seeing as we're dealing with superheroes, however, I think we should be okay on that one. 
> 
> Thank you as always to [Stark Panda](http://starkpanda.tumblr.com), without whom I would be much more of a disaster than I am currently.

  
  


The day the Howling Commandos arrive back at basecamp after their assault on Zola’s train, Peggy gets to hear the story about Bucky Barnes’s near-fall to the death three times before the night is out.

“And so I’m hangin’ there,” Barnes  drawls loudly during the third telling, eyes bright with liquor and apparently still exhilarated at being alive even after the two days it’s taken them to get back. “Dangling in the wind, clinging on for dear life while this one,” he nudges Steve hard in the side, “takes his sweet time climbing over to get me–”

“Will you shut _up_ ,” Steve groans, but Peggy can tell by the way his lips are twitching that he’s trying to conceal a smile. “What was I supposed to do? The train was going about a million miles per hour –”

“Sure it was,” Barnes cuts him off in a falsely placating voice, patting Steve sloppily on the arm. Everyone laughs, partly because it's funny and partly from the sheer relief of being alive, and Peggy feels a quirk of a smile tugging at a corner of her lips.

They’re sitting outside, she and the Commandos and a few select others, tucked into a wooded area just outside of basecamp. The night sky is like a blanket overhead but the campfire they’re sitting around is bright, the flames casting a warm glow over everyone’s faces.

The alcohol is technically contraband, and there’s no official reason why all of them should be congregating here rather than in their assigned quarters. Just for the night, though, the senior officers seem to be turning a blind eye to the lot of it.

Peggy takes a sip of the single beer she’s allowed herself – any more than that would leave her feeling more vulnerable than celebratory regardless of the excellent quality of the company – before nestling the bottle back into her lap, both of her hands curled around the cool glass.

“Come on, boys!” calls Dugan, red-faced and grinning with his bowler hat sitting crooked on his head. “I wanna hear how it ends.” He says the last part with utmost enthusiasm, as though he hadn’t actually been there in the immediate aftermath.

“Yes, finish the story,” Peggy adds, quiet but warm and with a smile in her voice, and Steve shoots her a brilliant grin from across the campfire. The sight of him makes a surge of elated contentment rush through the pit of her stomach.

Truth be told, she and Barnes haven’t always got along swimmingly. They’ve never had too many opportunities to interact with each other, for one thing; not with Barnes always out in the field and Peggy hunkered down at the SSR headquarters in London more often than not. There had been a time when their working relationship had been largely defined by their first impressions of one another – which certainly hadn’t taken place under the best circumstances. 

Peggy had first met the man when he was fresh out of Zola’s laboratory, after Steve had led the charge to rescue the 107th Infantry Unit from Hydra captivity in Austria. Back then Barnes had been hunched and solitary and quietly hostile, deflecting the world with averted eyes and too-tight smiles whenever Steve wasn’t there to see him.

It had taken Peggy a little while to realize that his disinterest in speaking to her extended to everyone who wasn’t his best friend, and the two of them had clashed early on when she had been assigned to question him further about his time as Zola’s scientific subject.

Peggy had understood what Barnes had been going through even then, of course. She had experienced similar treatment at the hands of enemy operatives in the past; remembered what it was like to claw her way back to normalcy after being taken apart so thoroughly at the seams.

She chose to ground herself in practicality and reason, and eventually – minus one or two half-hearted passes that she suspects had been the result of habit more than anything else – Barnes had come around. By now the two of them seem to have reached a certain level of understanding and acceptance that Peggy herself is quite pleased with. 

Barnes seems more at peace with himself now. Still hardened, and still a little raw beneath the surface, but filled with a certain clarity of purpose that had eluded him in the immediate aftermath of his own torture.

The two of them might not go out of their way to talk to one another, but as far as Peggy is concerned there is no bad blood between them.

“Anyways,” Barnes continues with just a hint of a slur, and privately Peggy is impressed at his fortitude. She wouldn’t have thought anyone Barnes’s size and height could’ve handled the amount of alcohol he’s consumed tonight without making a rather abrupt acquaintance with the ground.

“Anyways, the goddamn pole I’m holding onto nearly _breaks off_ , and I’m shitting my pants at this point, I swear. My fingers are going numb, I feel like I’m two seconds from slipping – and it’s about _five minutes_ before this lug manages to get close enough to grab me –”

“Ten seconds,” Steve interjects, casting his eyes heavenward as though asking for divine intervention. “It took me _ten seconds_ , I swear to God.”

There’s scattered laughter from all of them at that, stifled quickly so they can hear how it all ends. Barnes is grinning, enthusiastic and gleeful and lapping up the attention in a way that seems utterly natural to him, and in over a year of knowing him Peggy has never seen Barnes this animated before. Not even close.

“So he’s got me by the wrist, super soldier strength and all, and my heart’s still going a mile a minute because I’m _dangling in mid-air_ and he hasn’t pulled me back up yet. And then –” Barnes makes a snorting noise as he stifles a slightly hysterical laugh, cutting himself off. “And then he s-says –”

Barnes trails off, clutching at his sides as his shoulders literally shake with mirth and seemingly incapable of finishing the sentence.

“Don’t say it,” Steve laughs helplessly, the sound of it caught somewhere between giggling and snorting into his beer. He’s pink-cheeked and his hair is mussed, and it’s all the more endearing because Peggy knows the liquor hasn’t been affecting him in the slightest. He buries his face in his hands, shaking his head. “Don’t say it, Bucky, c’mon.”

Wordlessly, Barnes wraps an arm around Steve’s shoulders and slumps heavily against his side, the two of them shuddering with silent laughter. There are actual tears leaking out of the corners of Barnes’s eyes, and when he speaks his voice is thick with restrained laughter

“S-Steve’s the only thing between me and certain fucking death, and he just says –” Barnes straightens himself up, setting his shoulders and deepening his voice in a startlingly good impression of his best friend. “— _need a hand_?”

 _Everyone_ cracks up at that, loud and boisterous and all of them _laughing_ , and Barnes is grinning so wide it looks as though his face might split in half. Even Peggy, who has already heard this story twice, can’t hold back a slightly breathless giggle as all of the boys dissolve into hysteria around her.

“By the time I get in there,” Gabe wheezes, his whole body still racked with laughter, “the two of them are just – sprawled on the floor of the train, everything blasted apart and dead guys everywhere and a fucking _hole_ in the side of the car, laughing so hard I thought they were _crying_ at first, and I just say –”

“—what the _hell_ happened to you two?” Barnes choruses in unison with him, sending both he and Gabe into another spiral of helpless laughter.

Across the campfire from her, Steve’s shoulders are shaking with restrained mirth. Peggy doesn’t even realize she’s smiling openly until Steve glances up and catches her eye, and all at once she becomes very much aware that the quirked grin on her face mirrors his own.

They share a private moment like that, silent and off-kilter and absolutely jubilant from across the crowd. Steve’s eyes are very blue even in the glow of the campfire light, overcome and relieved and _happy_ in a way she doesn’t get to see in him all that often. His fringe is messy over his forehead, his cheeks still flushed with pleasure. After a moment Steve’s gaze shifts to Barnes beside him, still radiating the same warmth and contentment.

In that moment Peggy finds herself abruptly and profoundly _grateful_ that all of them came back from this mission alive. It’s not something she usually thinks about much beyond hoping for Steve’s safe return, too caught up in the grand scheme of victory and defeat to concern herself with the lives of individual soldiers.

Right now, though…

Right now Peggy is so very glad that everything turned out the way it did, that everyone who went out on this mission came home safe in the end.

Because she doesn’t know Barnes, not really. Not outside of his role as Steve’s best friend, as someone she sees at war meetings and respects as a soldier and trusts to have Steve’s back when she can’t. She doesn’t know much about his life before the war or what he wants to do with himself afterwards, has no idea what really makes the man tick. 

She does know Steve, though.

And Peggy suspects that losing Bucky Barnes just might’ve been enough to kill him.

 

\--

 

As soon as they get Steve on Schmidt’s plane and clamber out of the precariously-balanced car, Peggy and Colonel Phillips fight their way to the control room in a blaze of bullets and ruthless competency.

It’s a jarring transition, plunging back into the seemingly-endless miles of darkened hangar after the pristine white of the snow-peaked mountains outside, and it takes a minute for their vision to fully adjust to the change. Peggy very nearly gets taken out in a blue blast of Hydra weaponry but she hears the shrill charge of the gun in time, dodging sideways and dispatching her assailants in a burst of machine-gun fire.

Phillips takes the opportunity to short-circuit the ignition of one of the open-backed supply trucks and then they’re off again, roaring down the long metal corridor and back to where the fighting will be the fiercest.

She tries to stay focused as they barrel down the runway, the wind in her hair and her heart pounding in her chest, but it’s impossible not to think about Steve.

Steve, who is alone with Schmidt at this very moment. Who is aboard a highly weaponized aeroplane that could theoretically detonate at any moment.

Steve, who could very well be dead right now for all she knows.

They almost make it to the start of the runway before the wheels of the truck are blasted out beneath them, but Phillips manages to bring them to a screeching stop without ever losing control.

From there it’s just a short distance to the control room on the second floor, but the remaining Hydra goons don’t make it easy for them. There are at least a few dozen in between them and the control room door, and Peggy’s whole world narrows down to the difference between black armour and green fatigues. To the weight of the gun in her hands and the squeeze of her finger on the trigger, and Steve’s name pulses in her head like an open wound every time she takes a shot.

 _Steve_ , Peggy thinks as she takes out a Hydra goon leaning over the railing above, sending his body plummeting onto the concrete floor with a sickening crunch. _Steve,_ she thinks as she shoots a man right in the goggles as she charges up the stairs, shattering the glass as the bullet goes right through to his head. _Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve_ as she and Phillips mow down a cluster of them that come bursting through a doorway to their left, sending their broken and lifeless bodies toppling to the floor in a wave. 

Once they’re only a few feet away from the control room, Phillips turns and gives her an expectant look. Peggy takes a deep breath, nodding at him – before she slams a hand on the button that opens the strange sliding metal doors, charging inside with her weapon drawn and ready.

There’s someone in the room already, and Peggy is half a second away from pulling the trigger before she realizes who it is.

“Woah!” exclaims Jim Morita, his eyes wide and his hands already in the air. “Woah, it’s just me, don’t shoot!”

Peggy quickly scans the room and sees a few other men, but all of them are wearing green army fatigues. There’s a frozen moment before she lowers her weapon, the rush of the fight still pounding in her ears.

“What the _hell_ were you thinking, letting us barge in like that?” Peggy snaps fiercely, glaring at Jim as her heart slowly starts to slow down to something approaching a normal rate. If the words come out unnecessarily harsh, Peggy blames the very real knowledge of just how close she came to shooting him moments ago. “It could’ve been anyone!”

“Saw you comin’,” Jim explains, lowering his arms to his sides now that everyone in the room is on the same page. He nods over at one of the many small grey screens across the console, and sure enough it shows a grainy feed the now-empty hallway. “Did Rogers stop the plane?”

“Change of plans,” Phillips declares, the drawl in his voice exaggerated by the exertion of the fight. He lets out a huff of air, resting his gun on the console and crossing his arms over his chest. “Rogers is _on_ the plane.”

“Shit,” says Jim, eyes widening. He spins in his chair to face the control panel properly, flicking switches and jamming buttons with something bordering on frenzy. After a few moments he holds down a button and grabs the microphone, leaning in close as he speaks. “Come in, Captain Rogers. Do you read me?”

There’s a crackling pause where Peggy can feel her stomach twisting up into knots without her permission, her anxiety for Steve’s safety finally settling over her now that the immediate danger has been dealt with. Jim tries a few more times but eventually has to admit defeat, swearing softly as he pulls away from the control panel.

“Nothing,” Jim declares unnecessarily, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning at the microphone. There’s a wretched expression on his face, concern and fear and worry and all of it a little too close to what’s happening inside her own head for Peggy’s comfort.  

“Where are the rest of the Commandos?” Peggy interjects, partly to break the tense silence and partly because plans have a way of changing in the heat of a fight. Behind her, she can hear Phillips doling out orders to some of the other soldiers in the room.  

Jim gives his head a shake.

“Last I saw of Bucky, he was providing cover for the frontal assault,” says Jim, lowering himself down into one of the metal chairs in front of the console. “The rest of the boys were taking down goons in the hallway. I made it over here to see if there was a way to stop the plane from taking off from below, but no such luck. Schmidt’s pretty big on that whole ‘having singular control’ thing.”

Peggy nods curtly. After a moment, she catches Phillips’s eye from across the room, and he promptly walks over to join her.

“Do we know how soon Howard can get here?” Peggy asks quietly but urgently, arms crossed over her chest and lips pursed in worry. “I know he’s only supposed to join us once the facility is secure, but if anything goes wrong on that plane –”

“Already sent word,” says Phillips, cutting her off bluntly. She remembers the two soldiers he had been snapping orders at earlier, neither of whom seem to be in the room anymore. “Stark’ll be here as soon as he can. Sooner, if I have my way of it.”

Phillips’s eyes grow soft for a moment as he looks down at her, and all at once her kiss with Steve comes back to her in a rush of pleased embarrassment.  The speed of the car, the wind slapping against her cheeks and making her hair fly back behind her. The memory of how warm and real Steve’s lips had felt against hers.

It was a stolen moment that never should’ve happened, and now Peggy wonders if she’ll ever hear the end of it. She holds the Colonel’s gaze defiantly.

“He’ll be fine,” says Phillips in an unusually gentle voice, so different from the carelessly professional way he usually acts around her. Peggy blinks, and for a stilted moment she has no idea what to say.

She doesn’t have time to respond in the end, though, because out of the corner of her eye she sees Jim Morita stiffen up.

“Don’t shoot!” Jim orders loudly, staring at one of the little grey surveillance screens – just in time, apparently, because seconds later Bucky Barnes comes crashing through the console room doors.

Barnes is in disarray, visibly out of breath and his hair a sweaty mess against his forehead. There’s a streak of blood on his cheek and his left pant leg is soaked with more, but Peggy can’t tell from a glance whether it’s his own or someone else’s. His gun is raised and pointed right at them as he stumbles rather than walks into the room.

“Stand down, soldier,” Phillips commands, effortlessly authoritative, and Barnes only hesitates for a split second before dropping his gun to his side.

“Where’s Steve?” Barnes demands roughly, breathing hard, the question makes something clench unpleasantly inside her chest. It’s obvious that he’s had a difficult time getting to them; he had been positioned outside the facility to provide cover fire when the assault began, she remembers, so he must have fought his way with real ferocity in order to meet them here so quickly.

“He’s on the plane with Schmidt,” Peggy answers quickly, and the reality of it doesn’t sound any better out loud than it does in her head. “Colonel Phillips and I just barely managed to get him onboard thirty minutes ago. We haven’t heard anything from him since.”

The look of stifled panic Barnes gives her hits a little too close for comfort, and Peggy busies herself by walking over and speaking in hushed tones with Phillips for a few minutes while the tension mounts in the pit of her stomach. She can see Barnes pacing frenetically out of the corner of her eye, a slight hobble in his step from what she can only assume to be a leg injury. He doesn’t complain and she doesn’t ask, both of them trapped in the horrible stasis of waiting.

The machines whir and hum around them, the glow of the dials and buttons on the walls and on the console standing out sharply against the dull grey of the metal. Phillips taps his foot impatiently, arms crossed over his chest. Barnes paces, and Peggy holds her breath. Every so often they can hear the sound of a gunshot being fired outside, but no one comes to attack them.

Just as the worry has started to coalesce into a sickly thrum in the pit of her stomach, what looks like a microphone  in front of Jim on the console comes to life with a sudden crackle of static.

“ _Come in. This is Captain Rogers. Do you read me?”_ asks a tinny voice on the other end of the line, and all at once Peggy’s stomach unclenches and her shoulders sag with relief because there is absolutely no doubt in her mind that it’s Steve’s voice.

“Captain Rogers, what is your –?” Jim tries to ask, but Peggy is already moving into his space and soundly cutting him off.

“Steve, is that you? Are you all right?” she asks quickly, sliding into the vacated chair and barely even bothering to conceal the tremor in her voice.

Barnes rushes in to stand right beside her, and Peggy jumps in her seat because she had almost forgotten he was in the room for a second there. He clings to the back of her chair with unsteady hands, leaning in close so that Steve can hear him too.

“Steve, what the hell’s going on up there?” Barnes asks, his voice brusque and his presence at her side full of tension, and for a surreal moment Peggy feels an immediate and profound sense of camaraderie with him.

Everyone else in this room is concerned with the mission, with Captain America.

Right now, she and Barnes only care about Steve.

“ _Peggy, Bucky – Schmidt’s dead_.”

There’s a strange beat of silence where they all wait for him to continue, but doesn’t say anything else. Peggy swallows hard, the flicker of victory in her chest swiftly snuffed out by the frightening lack of other information.

“What about the plane?” Peggy asks, already dreading the answer.  She feels Barnes’s hand tighten on the back of her chair.

The pause that follows her question drags on just a little bit too long. 

“ _That’s a little bit tougher to explain_ ,” says Steve at last, and she gives her head an unsteady shake.

“Give me your coordinates, I’ll find you a safe landing site,” she instructs, already reaching for the discarded pen and paper on the control panel to write them down. Her heart is thrumming erratically in her chest, and it’s a struggle to maintain her composure and not fumble the pen when she wraps her fingers around it.

“ _There’s not gonna be a safe landing_ ,” Steve says, and Barnes is already surging forward beside her.

“Why the fuck not?” Barnes asks roughly, an unquestionably frantic note in his voice. Steve makes a frustrated noise over the line.

“ _This thing’s moving too fast and it’s heading straight for New York_ ,” Steve explains, and Peggy thinks she can hear the sound of him pushing buttons and flicking switches over the connection. “ _It’s armed to the teeth; anywhere I land could be blown to hell and back for all I know. But_ –”

Steve cuts himself off abruptly, sounding as though he very much doesn’t want to say what comes next. There’s a pause while they all wait for him to finish, and the silence in the control room is so complete you could hear a pin drop.

“ _But I can try to force it down,”_ says Steve eventually, sounding like the words have been physically wrenched from his throat.

An explosion of panicky shock bursts inside Peggy’s chest, makes the world go bright white and sideways in front of her eyes. 

“No goddamn way!” Barnes barks next to her, and she notices dully that his hands are shaking. He takes a deep, shaking breath. Grits his teeth and physically forces himself to keep talking. “There’s gotta be something else, Steve, _c’mon_.”

Her eyes are wide and her heart is racing, and all Peggy wants is to reach through the line; to wrap her arms around Steve and _cling_. To tell him _you can’t do this_ and _think about what you’re saying_ and _don’t you dare do this to me, don’t you dare._

She forces herself to think instead, racing through and discarding ideas as quickly as they occur to her. 

“I’ll get Howard on the line, he’ll know what to do,” Peggy insists, trying to sound as though she has the situation under control. Without fully registering what it means, she hears Colonel Phillips ushering Jim Morita out of the room behind her.

The pause that comes next breaks her heart for how long the crackling silence lingers. 

“ _There’s not enough time_ ,” says Steve eventually, resignation and grief and reluctant conviction clear in his voice, and it feels as though the bottom has fallen out of her stomach. And then –

“ _I gotta put her in the water_.”

Distantly, Peggy can feel a horrible certainty beginning to descend over her body like a fog. She rails against it, shakes her head hard.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare!” Barnes shouts, his hands clenched into fists as he lurches forward – but as soon as the words are out he lets out a choked-off sound of distress. He rakes a hand through his hair, eyes wild and breathing hard. “There’s – there’s gotta be a parachute or something.  You can force it down and get outta there before the crash, or –”

“Please don’t do this,” says Peggy entreatingly, her voice snagging violently as she speaks. Her throat feels tight as she swallows back tears. “We have time. We can work it out.”

“ _Right now I’m in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer, a lot of people are going to die_ ,” says Steve, and there’s a waver in his voice that almost makes it sound as though he’s trying to convince himself. It breaks her heart, hearing him like this, and she breathes in sharply and stifles back a sob. Her eyes are burning now, and it’s not fair, it’s not _fair_ , and it wasn’t supposed to be like this –

“Give me your coordinates,” Barnes intones after a long pause, his voice hollow and dull and absolutely unbending. She hears Steve make a muffled noise on the other end of the line.

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve says quietly, sounding hoarse and hollow and so very _sad_ , and Peggy can make out a tremor in his voice. “ _There’s nothing you can_ —”

“Give me your _fucking_ coordinates!” Barnes snarls, surging forward and _slamming_ both of his hands on the console, not giving an inch. Seething beside her with helpless rage, furious and frantic next to Peggy’s brittle restraint. “I’m not letting you land in the middle of nowhere without telling us, you punk. We need to know where to come and get you after –” his voice cuts off with a hiccupping noise, his breathing is ragged and unsteady behind her.

“After you land the plane,” Barnes finishes after a moment, weakly but insistently.

Steve doesn’t say anything for a few long seconds.

“ _Okay_ ,” he concedes eventually, and Peggy squeezes her eyes shut because it’s the weary resignation of a man who knows he doesn’t have the time to fight. “ _Okay, it’s – I’m at_ _67°59'11.8"N, 65°59'15.6"W._ _Got that?”_

With a steadying breath, Peggy obediently scratches the coordinates onto the paper. Her eyes are burning, and her vision is starting to blur.

It feels like such an empty gesture, so pointless – but Barnes relaxes infinitesimally next to her all the same once the last number is written on the page. He still has his hands on the console, gripping it tight with his arms outstretched and his head hanging down between them so that his face is obscured from her.

There is a long moment of silence in which none of them speaks, and for the first time in a long time Peggy becomes conscious enough of the room around her to notice that there is no one but her and Barnes left in it. The realization makes a strangled little sound force its way out of her throat, her hand clenching around the pen and her shoulders hunching as she fights the urge to curl in on herself.

“ _Peggy_ ,” Steve says after a long pause, the fear and tension in his voice making her feel sick to her stomach because he’s started it, hasn’t he, he’s started taking the plane down. “ _I’m gonna need a raincheck on that dance_.”

She takes a long, shuddering breath. Her mouth is tight and her eyes are damp and it’s all she can do to stay calm, stay even, stay strong for him. _There’s not much time left_ , she finds herself thinking, clinging to the horrible thought to stop herself from falling to pieces. _You can break down after he’s – after it’s over. Be strong for him_. 

“All right,” she says quietly, in a voice that sounds weaker and more unsteady than she wants it to. She swallows down a sob, blinking as a tear slides down her cheek. “A week next Saturday, at the Stork Club. Don’t you dare be late.”

“ _You got it_ ,” says Steve, quiet and shaky, and for the life of her she can’t tell whether the words are for her comfort or his.

There’s a beat of silence, before –

“ _Bucky_ ,” comes Steve’s voice again, and Peggy can’t resent Barnes for being here for this moment when he makes a sound as though his knees are about to give out beneath him.

“I’m here,” says Barnes, sounding choked-off and ragged, and when Peggy turns to look at him she’s somewhat shocked to see tears already rolling freely down his ruddy face. He scrubs them aside with one hand, edging closer to the microphone. “Stevie, I’m here.”

“ _Just_ –” Steve begins, cutting himself off and taking a shaky breath. “ _It’s not the end of the line for you._ _Go home, get married_. _Have a normal life_.” He laughs, hollow and humourless. “ _Find someone who makes you happy and never let go.”_

Barnes makes a strangled, broken noise beside her.

“Steve,” croaks Barnes, the word hitching in his throat. As though it physically pains him to get the word out. He shakes his head hard, his eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t –”

“ _It’s okay_ ,” says Steve, and he sounds more strained now. More scared. He takes a shuddering breath that they can both hear over the line, and for a second Peggy wonders if he’s crying too. Her lips begin to tremble. “ _It’s okay, both of you. I_ –”

There’s a burst of static, a loud crackle of noise – and all at once Steve’s voice is cut off with sickening finality, leaving nothing but radio silence in its wake.

Once, during a mission, Peggy had been captured and interrogated by NKVD agents for long enough that they had been able to remove three of her fingernails before her fellow agents had been able to get to her. The pain had been terrible, enough to make her shriek and cry out despite her best efforts. Even worse, though, had been the aching sense of _loss_ that had accompanied it. The shock of having a fundamental part of her body torn away from her so abruptly, so _pointlessly_.

This feels like that, she thinks.

Except that this is so, so much worse.

“Steve?” Peggy asks quietly, plaintively, but it isn’t even really a question. The word snags in her throat and her own voice quavers in a way she barely recognizes. She sucks in a shaking breath, fighting to hold back the tears. “Steve?” 

Beside her Barnes makes a choked-off sound, as though he can’t stop the noise escaping from his throat. She glances over and sees his face shining wet with tears, his mouth hanging open in wordless shock. He’s staring at the console as though he can’t comprehend the sight of it; as though he might be sick.

“Idiot,” Barnes whispers in a hollow sort of voice, blinking hard as he stares at the microphone with unseeing eyes. He swallows hard. “Why does he have to–?” Barnes cuts himself off as his voice hitches and thickens, squeezing his eyes shut. “Why does he always have to –?”

And then Peggy is crumpling, eyes blurring and collapsing in on herself like a house of cards, head in her hands and crying like she hasn’t done since she was a little girl. Shuddering, helpless sobs of disbelief and devastation and a grief so profound it feels too big to be real.

It’s done, now. It’s over.

She doesn’t have to be strong anymore.

The metal console thrums beneath her elbows, her face already slick with tears. Barnes’s breathing has grown ragged beside her but Peggy can barely bring herself to notice. Just keeps shaking apart in her own hands, every part of her consumed by the immediacy of the loss.

 _It wasn’t supposed to happen like this_ , Peggy thinks nonsensically as Barnes’s knees give out beneath him in shock, as the future she had finally begun to hope for falls to pieces all around her. She shudders and gasps, cries until her throat is sore and she can’t breathe and her eyes are red and swollen. Until it feels as though nothing exists outside of her own grief. 

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this at all.

  


  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. If you have enjoyed this chapter, please consider leaving a comment; I would truly appreciate it!
> 
> Please also feel free to join me over on [tumblr](http://emilianadarling.tumblr.com), where my adoration for Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers, and Bucky Barnes is on display pretty much 24/7.


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